While anime is well-recognized as a significant motivator of Japanese language learners today, idol fandom, though served as an equally strong source of motivation for some learners, receives far less academic attention. This paper is a preliminary exploration of idol fandom's role in fueling the Japanese language-learning process. Through…

The present study explores the effects of distributed practice by extending this area of research to L2 learning from audiovisual input. A total of 96 L1 Russian elementary to advanced learners of English watched five episodes of captioned TV series under three viewing distribution conditions: longer spacing of viewing once per week; shorter…

Lexical bundles, or recurrent word strings, are one of the key elements in increasing fluency of linguistic production and in mastering second language learning. In most previous works, lexical bundles were analyzed in specific disciplines. Little research paid attention to spoken discourse, particularly in doctors' conversations (hereby referred…

Schmitt and Schmitt (2014) labelled the first 4,000 to 9,000 word families as mid-frequency vocabulary and highlighted its essential nature based on Nation's (2006) estimate that knowledge of the first 9,000 word families would provide 98% coverage of various texts. To attain this goal, this study first measured the vocabulary level of Voice of…

The language practices of Heritage Learners (HLs) of Spanish are frequently regulated and stigmatized in academic and community settings when their Spanish is perceived as deficient. By ignoring institutional structures that accelerate Spanish loss, the "inadequacy" of Latinxs' Spanish is regularly perceived to be the fault of…

This study investigates how visual context influences second language (L2) long-term structural priming for the Chinese "ba" construction. The experiment consisted of a baseline phase, an exposure phase, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest. L2 Chinese learners (N = 120) were assigned to 1 of 4 groups for the exposure…

Familiarity with the television set as a principal news and entertainment medium has allowed for a smooth transition of television programmes into the language classroom (Mishan, 2005). However, in the technology-rich environment we live in today, access to television programmes in foreign languages is not restricted to class. A good understanding…

The present study deals with the effect of audio-visual material for second language (L2) pragmatic learning in the foreign language classroom. More specifically, it analyzes whether being exposed to captioned and non-captioned input in an experimental condition entailing no instruction on pragmatics might have any influence on the learners'…

The teaching and acquisition of foreign language pragmatics as a part of the communicative competence paradigm has been reported as essential since the deviation from the Chomskian competence-based model to a more performative one in the '80s. Despite this change, only a few course books include or are designed on a teaching pragmatics basis. As…

This paper will analyze the function of final particle "yo", and factors that may affect the use of "yo" in order to avoid FTAs if there is any. The data used in this paper is a transcription of a 10-minute unscripted excerpt from a Japanese comedy variety show called "Shabekuri 007". The excerpt was first aired on…

This paper investigates foreigners' linguistic and visual representations observed in 17 recent Japanese animated shows (or "anime"), and explores ways to increase students' critical awareness of issues regarding Japanese language and culture. We find that foreign characters in "anime" tend to be linguistically represented with…

Sociolinguists have adopted the concept of 'super-diversity' from cultural anthropology to analyse multidimensional changes in ethnolinguistic identities resulting from recent mass migration. Sociolinguistic super-diversity is thus understood as a central aspect of shifts in migration patterns that have increased the complexity of cultural…

This paper computes estimates of the potential for Extensive Reading (ER) and Extensive Viewing (EV) to support the academic and discipline-specific vocabulary needs of students. While research into ER/EV for general vocabulary is well-established, only recently has academic vocabulary begun to be researched. Given curriculum time constraints,…

This study examines the effect of textual enhancement on learners' attention to and learning of multiword units from captioned audiovisual input. We adopted a within-participants design in which 28 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) watched a captioned video containing enhanced (underlined) and unenhanced multiword units. Using…

International education constitutes a key industry in Australia and international students represent a third of university students at Australian universities. This paper examines the media representation of international students in terms of their English language proficiency. The study applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the multimodal data…